Another stadium site emerges right next door

With all the site options still swirling around the Vikings’ push for a new stadium, a new one has entered the picture: right next door to the Metrodome.

Vikings vice president of stadium development Lester Bagley and Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission chairman Ted Mondale say that they’ve been eyeing acreage southeast of the Dome, between 11th Avenue S. and Interstate 35W, as a possible location for a new stadium.

“The question we’re looking at right now is, can you take the 511 Building behind the Dome, move the [Xcel Energy] substation and fit [a stadium] behind there,” Mondale said.

Bagley said the Vikings have looked at the area. “It would be ideal to build a stadium next door and play in the Dome, like many teams do,” he said. The team would save the cost, estimated at $48 million, of having to play at the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium for up to three seasons.

However, the site has issues of its own. Bagley said the Vikings have been told that Xcel’s Elliot Park substation can’t be relocated. The 511 Building, which used to house Control Data and now is a center for telecommunications firms, has long-term leases and high-tech equipment that would complicate moving.

“We’ve not yet seen a viable plan that would accomplish that,” Bagley said.

Last winter there was talk that the Vikings could build on Star Tribune property near the Dome on the downtown side. Bagley said that won’t work. The newspaper’s property, two blocks in width at that point, is hemmed in by the light-rail line on one side and historic properties on the other. A new stadium would require more room, he said.